Chapter 167: Chapter 164: The Autonomy Talisman Strikes Hard
 

Three days allocated for talisman delivery flew by, and before long, over forty Blood Orange Trees in the Spirit Plant Garden at Lotus University were all using Plant Autonomy Talismans.

Some senior students followed Jiang Cheng’s approach, starting with seeds and gradually nurturing them to grow with the Autonomy Talismans.

Other impatient seniors partly affixed Autonomy Talismans on the saplings of Blood Orange Trees and partly directly on mature Blood Orange Trees.

Thus, all sorts of Blood Orange Trees began emerging in the Spirit Plant Garden at Lotus University.

There were saplings temporarily growing silently without the help of weeds. There were also short but fast-moving “Baoqiang Fruit Trees” with still decent hairdos and capable of Kung Fu.

The Spirit Plant Garden at Lotus University, originally quiet and removed from the main campus, became extraordinarily lively with the introduction of the Plant Autonomy Talismans.

The Spirit Plant Garden was bustling, but with that came problems.

To be precise, not one of the other seniors had a whole wasteland like Jiang Cheng did.

They grew theirs in their own small plots, some even in their groups’ experimental fields.

Due to the limited space, the nutrients in the plots were quickly exhausted by the Blood Orange Trees, and then, some of the trees began the “weeding” operation.

They started with the “weeds,” then the “grass,” followed by the “tall grass,” and finally the “green-leafed grass.”

When a second-year student from the Spiritual Planting Department arrived at the Spirit Plant Garden the next day,

what faced him was a barren land, verging on desertification.

“Holy shit, where’s my homework?”

A third-year student from the Spiritual Planting Department came to the Spirit Plant Garden.

Witnessing a piece of land that looked as though wild boars had ravaged it,

“Holy shit! Who ate my graduation project!”

Facing the tragedy of their peers from the same major, some foresighted students from the Spiritual Planting Department secretly rejoiced.

“Fortunately, my research is on tuberous Spirit Plants. It’s not a problem if the branches and leaves are gone; as long as the roots and stems are still there… Holy shit! Where’s my Spirit Potato?!”

Shriveled Spirit Potatoes lay scattered about, each looking as though it had been wrung dry, completely exhausted, making it hard to imagine the torments they had suffered while alive.

Just as the students from the Spiritual Planting Department were lamenting the injustice of their fates, the “culprits” continued “weeding.”

One student from the Spiritual Planting Department could no longer bear it.

Damn it, bullied by parents at home, bullied by a girlfriend at school, and now even by a fruit tree when planting a Spirit Plant!

Too pathetic!

It was just too damn pathetic!

Determined to show some backbone, he rushed toward a Kung Fu Fruit Tree and shouted, “Stop! I won’t allow you to destroy the Spirit Plants in the garden anymore!”

The fruit tree remained oblivious to his cries.

But you can’t blame the fruit tree.

It had neither ears nor a brain.

The enemy with a gift of the gab: like a river of words, knowledgeable about the past and the present, citing classics and arguing with reason.

Fruit Tree: “I don’t get it.”

“Stop or I’ll freeze your hands!”

After several unsuccessful warnings, the student from the Spiritual Planting Department finally lost his patience and attacked the fruit tree.

But the fruit tree, as if it had eyes, dodged the student’s spells with a cunning move.

Then it raised its “kitchen knife.”

The student smirked in disdain. Merely a tree, even if it held a weapon and knew some martial arts, could it beat him, a cultivator at the seventh level of Qi practice?

Does he not understand the value of being at the seventh level of Qi practice?

However, what the student from the Spiritual Planting Department didn’t expect was that a certain Jiang surnamed Talisman Master, who wished to remain unnamed, had already optimized the Plant Autonomy Talismans specifically for the possibility of “thieves being too strong.”

Martial Virtue, a fine human quality.

Fruit Tree: Heh heh, I’m not human.

Seeing over forty fruit trees in the Spirit Plant Garden come wielding kitchen knives from all directions after the first tree was attacked, surrounding the “thief” trying to steal fruit, was an impressive sight indeed.

A single tree might look weak, but over forty trees made for a dense and overwhelming mass.

Tree after tree holding a kitchen knife, the pressure of being surrounded by thug-like trees was imaginable.

The surrounded student was so frightened that he wet himself right there.

Who had seen such a scene in peaceful times?

Fortunately, he was not the only one in the Spirit Plant Garden at the time.

Several classmates were watching nearby.

Seeing a fellow student in trouble, numerous brave students from the Spiritual Planting Department stood up. They each used their spells to confront the crowd of Kung Fu Fruit Trees!

The once tranquil Spirit Plant Garden instantly became a battlefield.

Although the trees had no brains, under the control of the pre-set programs of the Autonomy Talismans, their coordination was seamless.

The first wave of fruit trees went in to absorb some damage, followed immediately by the second wave taking advantage of the cultivators’ skills being on cooldown to go on a chopping spree.

The third wave of trees stood back, pelting the cultivators with rocks to strike and disrupt them.

The Spiritual Planting Department students who had not taken action earlier, upon seeing this scene, were dumbfounded.

Are these really just fruit trees?

Or is this some fearless plant legion?

Cui Zhifei, the counselor of Talisman Drawing Class 1 from the 3210th year, was cheerfully humming in the counselors’ office at that moment.

This office belonged to the counselors from the Talisman Drawing specialty.

There were just three people.

One was Cui Zhifei, the counselor of Class 1.

Another was Liu Lingshen, the counselor of Class 2.

Another one was Mao Lang, counselor of Class 3.

Among the three people, Cui Zhifei was the youngest, least experienced and held the lowest rank as a Talisman Master.

However, he now sat as an equal with the other two senior teachers, which made him feel pretty good.

At the very least, he had won at the starting line, and compared to his seniors, his teaching career should be a lot easier.

Mao Lang exchanged a glance with Liu Lingshen, and Mao Lang asked, “Zhifei, how’s Jiang Cheng from your class been doing?”

Cui Zhifei immediately said with pride, “He’s been doing really well and never caused me any worry. I heard some people call Jiang Cheng a troublemaker, but I never felt that way. I think he’s very honest, kind-hearted and sincere, easy to talk to, and particularly talented in talismans.”

Cui Zhifei took out a previous issue of “Talisman Weekly” and flipped to the page featuring the Muscle Relaxation Talisman.

His tone and gestures were full of show-off: “Our class’s Jiang Cheng is indeed very capable. Look, even the weekly published his talisman. Actually, this talisman didn’t have much to do with me, I was just lucky to have stumbled upon a talisman genius.”

Upon hearing the words “stumbled upon”, the faces of Liu Lingshen and Mao Lang turned green.

If it weren’t for their firm refusal to take Jiang Cheng initially, how could Cui Zhifei have ‘stumbled upon’ him?

In hindsight, their worries about Jiang Cheng were excessive; he was clearly very honest!

His performance in the new student assessment was just slightly aggressive, that’s all.

Mao Lang and Liu Lingshen were filled with regret—they could have claimed the genius Jiang Cheng for themselves if they had but spoken up at the start of term.

Such a pity!

A real pity!

While Mao Lang and Liu Lingshen were consumed with regret, the door to the counselors’ office was suddenly flung open.

A teacher from Lotus University’s security office said, “Counselor Cui! It’s bad, Jiang Cheng from your class drew some talisman, and it has kidnapped four or five students from the Spiritual Planting Department!”

Cui Zhifei: ???

Liu Lingshen and Mao Lang: Yes, yes, yes, that familiar feeling is back again.

Cui Zhifei hurried to the scene of the incident and found many teachers had arrived, but no one dared to take action.

At the moment, the situation in the Spirit Plant Garden was: A bunch of Blood Orange Trees wielding kitchen knives were guarding five students who had been pinned to the ground amongst the ravaged dirt where spirit plants had been uprooted; many teachers and students from the Spiritual Planting Department were onlookers, but none dared to intervene.

Who knew if taking action might infuriate the trees, causing them to lash out violently?

Should that happen, all the responsibility would fall on the person who acted, so no one dared to make a move.

As soon as Cui Zhifei arrived on the scene, he asked, “What’s going on here? Where’s Jiang Cheng?”

The teacher from the security office said, “We’ve notified Jiang Cheng, he said he’s on his way.”

Ten minutes later, Jiang Cheng rushed to the scene.

At this moment, Cui Zhifei couldn’t care about anything else; at Lotus University, student safety was definitely the top priority. If a student were to die, the counselor would be in big trouble.

“Jiang Cheng, what’s up with your talisman, think of something quick!”

Jiang Cheng glanced at the situation, let out a sigh of relief and said, “I thought something serious had happened, it turns out it’s only a few people being captured.”

Cui Zhifei: Huh? You don’t think this is serious when it’s almost a matter of life and death?

Jiang Cheng explained to the bewildered crowd, “Here’s what happened: the trees learned some martial arts for self-defense to protect their fruit. But don’t worry, the trees won’t harm people; they only counterattack in self-defense. Most likely, these students provoked the trees and were then caught as thieves.”

Everyone was shocked: Trees? Learning martial arts? Self-defense counterattacks? Catching thieves? You’re telling us your trees not only learn but understand the law, and now they even act heroically?

Jiang Cheng calmly said, “Don’t worry everyone, it’s okay. As long as the thieves exhaust their spiritual power, they won’t trigger the trees’ defense mechanism.”

The counselor of the kidnapped students from the Spiritual Planting Department immediately shouted, “What are you waiting for, you guys? Hurry up and follow Jiang Cheng’s instructions, dissipate all your spiritual power!”

Jiang Cheng added, “You don’t need to dissipate it completely, retaining a trace to stabilize your condition is fine.”

Ultimately, under Jiang Cheng’s calm and orderly command, all the “thieves” who were “kidnapped” by the trees were safely rescued.

But, while the people were saved, the incident was far from over.

Because of the trees’ weeding, coupled with the students’ fight with the trees, a large part of the Spirit Plant Garden of the Spiritual Planting Department was destroyed.

Allocating responsibility and handling the aftermath were both very troublesome matters.

“All in all, it’s good that no one’s hurt,” Jiang Cheng consoled Cui Zhifei.

Cui Zhifei felt like crying without tears.

It looked like he would be busy for the next few days.

Is it still possible to not be the counselor of Class 1 now?

In the Capital’s Shen Residence, second-order Talisman Master Wang Xiaoqiu excitedly sought out Shen Mi.

“Master Shen, Master Shen, I have something big to tell you!”

Shen Mi, seeing Wang Xiaoqiu’s agitated appearance, felt disdainful in his heart.

He thought to himself that a cultivator at Foundation Establishment should be able to control their emotions, remain calm and composed; otherwise, they had little hope of achieving greatness.

Wang Xiaoqiu happily exclaimed, “Master Shen, our Plant Empowerment Talisman has passed the certification of Linlan Sect’s Talisman Master Association!”

Shen Mi was taken aback, not quite grasping it, “What?”

“It passed the certification! I suppose Jiang Cheng forgot to send his talisman for certification at the Association, letting us find a loophole!”

Shen Mi was suddenly overjoyed!

He even jumped on the spot, disregarding his image.

He knew better than anyone what it meant for a talisman to pass certification.

It meant that even if they had to fight a legal battle over talismans with Jiang Cheng in the future, Miaodan Workshop had a good chance of winning!

But right now, what mattered most wasn’t thinking about the future, but to draw as many talismans as possible!

Then they needed to demarcate territory, plant saplings, and immediately start producing Blood Orange Fruit!

And they had to do everything possible to block the news about the autonomy talisman, so competitors would find out about the Self-Empowerment Talisman a bit later.

Blocking the news was to ensure that Miaodan Workshop could reap all of the ‘low price Blood Orange Fruit’ first-mover advantages to the fullest!

According to Shen Mi’s estimate, if he played his cards right, this venture could net Miaodan Workshop at least hundreds of millions of Spirit Stones in profit!

It might even be possible to become the number one alchemist shop in the entire Liang Kingdom!